Archive for the 'Civil Unrest' Category

There are different ways of reading history , and I’d like to suggest a different one from the North Korean -type torrent of fawning and obsequiousness that we’ve had from the servile fourth estate in recent days.
After the defeat of 1945, the Tory Establishment found themselves in a country which was increasingly heading in an egalitarian direction.
The old divide was still there, but by the early 1960′s the rise of Harold Wilson and a parallel appreciation of working-class culture as the engine of change left the old aristocracy and their corporate interests floundering.
They still had the intelligence services and freemasonry, of course, and the War in Ireland kept both these venerable institutions in business.
They realised the ‘lessons’ from the first miners’ strike (during Heath’s Government) that they were close to losing control of a country which was still effectively owned by the top 10% of society, largely unchanged since 1689, if not 1067.
The indefatigable Harold Wilson ‘resigned’ after constant harassment from MI5/6, slipped away and died after a botched operation; followed by Callaghan’s Government of Social Democrats which subjected the working class to the first wave of monetarism – courtesy of the US-led IMF – which of course, led to the infamous ‘Winter of Discontent’.
The way of strife and confrontation had already been chosen by the right-wing of the Establishment, and 5/6 stepped up and did their part.
Anyone who knows their history will recognise the usual slide from active democracy to police state under Thatcher’s watch; the destruction of the miners through black propaganda (Scargill’s Libyan/ Russian Gold); the shoot-to-kill of the IRA members in Gibraltar and the ‘involvement’ of British intelligence in various assassinations in the 6 Counties; the use of police as Government forces opposing unarmed demonstrators; the collusion with the occupying forces of the USA in turning the UK into a WWIII launchpad / nuclear target . . .
The way was prepared after Callaghan’s disastrous administration for a ‘conviction politician’ of the right to assume power, with the full support of the Tory-owned press and the ‘guidance’ of her campaign manager, Airey Neave, an old hand of the British spy world since WWII.
In the 11 years of her disastrous regime, the two intelligence services went from dusty offices in Whitehall – where they had managed to operate during the whole of the Cold War – to two gigantic palaces on the Thames, and their ‘invisible’ budgets expanded in the same way.
Since then we have lived in a country where political ‘coincidence’ seems to happen almost naturally; the death of John Smith to be succeeded by the public-school lawyer Blair, who had been brought into the Labour Party to ‘rid it of Militant’ (or militants, aka party activists with any left-wing principles); the death of Robin Cook, David Kelly; the 1994 Chinook helicopter crash . . . etc. etc.
The most important fact to remember about Thatcher – when anyone mentions ‘democratic mandate’ – is that she was levered into power at exactly the moment that the immense wealth from North Sea Oil and gas came online.
What wasn’t used in the economic transformation, designed to break the back of organised labour (by replacing employment with dole and servant-jobs without a living wage), was siphoned off by the same old faces, whose children are now running both Government and the media ( the refuge for attention-seeking inheritance airheads, who these days dominate everything from pseudo-’popular’ music to TV and the stage).
I recommend a read of an excellent article (Nobody told us we could do this (PDF) by Simon Matthews) which sets out the economic truths behind the world which Thatcher’s regime conceived; a world of the dispossessed masses and the new kleptocracy, almost the same as the old kleptocracy.

Her regime destroyed communities -both traditional, like the miners; and ‘alternative’, like the Travellers at the Battle of the Beanfield 27 long years ago. People have had to live, not just with the memories, but the suffering which resulted from her antisocial policies and the continuation of the monetarist nightmare that she heralded in ever since then; and that is why the majority of people in this country – outside of the City of London and those palaces on the Thames – are glad to see her finally slip away to the Last Judgement like everyone else – from which no amount of taxpayer-funded militarised pomp and flummery can save her wretched soul…

Welcome back readers!

Unnamed Chinese aircraft-carrier . . .

We have been busy formenting revolution, making music and keeping bread on the table, which is why there have been no communiqués for a while . .

However, the world has not stopped turning, and we are now standing at the threshold of the Great Resource War, which is being fought by proxy forces in Syria; an election between two State Stooges in the USA. and across Europe a wave of anger at the ongoing theft of their public estate by the same ruling class who only begrudgingly relaxed their death-cold grip after the slaughter of the First Imperial World War.

Meanwhile, in Africa and parts of Asia, the grotesque leviathan of endless consumption is being steered by the forces of Chinese economic power and US military blackmail, turning rainforests into millions of obese, waddling children and ultimately – despite the bleating denials of corporate patsies – melting the polar ice at a faster rate than at any time in recorded human history.

And most of this goes either unnoticed, or is presented in some distorted, back-to-front fashion. Black becomes white, white becomes black; freedom becomes an illusion, and power is only purchased by money. Democracy claims to protect the minorities, but is in fact the dominance of the ‘silent’ – or disempowered – majority crushing the minority into silence. The silence is used to justify whatever sociopathic behaviour the ruling class figures leads to less opposition and increased profits,

The media, which originally aimed to explain now aims to persuade; and as for the freedom of speech – the more that’s said, the less we can actually say.

After the Riots which swept through England last Summer, the Establishment decided that justice should be swift and harsh. People should be punished with the full weight of the law if they are caught threatening the sacrosanct principles of Property and Business. Teenagers were given custodial sentences of two or three years for petty theft committed in a state of spontaneous disorder.

All this was forgotten, however, in the pseudo-liberal bleatings of attention-hungry politicians and media wanabees and has beens adding to the chorus of disapproval at the ‘evil Russkies’ reverting to form and locking up the ( entertainingly saucy) women of Pussy Riot.

It’s just strange that those same voices remained silent over the imprisoning of (the Pink Floyd’s guitarist) David Gilmour’s son – who got a 2 year prison sentence for swinging from a flagpole during the student demonstrations last year.

In fact, there was implicit, if not overt, support over the last year from many of those ‘concerned voices’ for the swift retribution against the ‘rioters’ of Summer 2011; with sentences of two years for stealing a bottle of mineral water being a good example of the disproportionate treatment given to the poor compared to the rich, who have literally looted the public coffers with no penalties at all.

Men who have bankrupted their countries’ treasuries; playing poker with billions of pounds that they neither own or have earned; who have trousered millions in bonuses for making non-existent profits on rigged deals are (at worst) retiring with vast pensions or moving up the ladder to perpetrate more theft from the public purse. As they are ultimately the paymasters of our ‘representatives’ – who actually represent no-one but themselves and their corporate bagmen – they don’t need to fear the law; they pay for it to be written and enacted with the proceeds the labour of millions of underpaid workers. And as they slowly strangle the state to death, the state is dying in all its beneficient social aspects. Our taxes now just pay for the state as a machine of control and repression, the guarantor of the slowly ossifying status quo; all those libraries, swimming pools, town halls are being sold off to provide ‘luxury apartments’ for the narcissistic, shallow children of the upper class who are now doing ‘so well’ in the media, and all those associated and nepotistic jobs that ultimately produce nothing except debt for the masses and profit for the piggery.

To keep us all happy, we are offered a quick fix of a Royal Jubilee followed by the international corporate hijacking of human endeavour – the Olympic Games. In Britain, we all know that there’s going to be a really bad hangover – the sort where you wake up the morning after a night out in the pub and realise your last memory is standing on the bar shouting ‘Drinks on me !’ before punching your boss and dropping your mobile in a pint of beer.

After the Tory Coalition Government produced the most risible Budget in modern times, which tried to raise money on the heat of a pie, people slowly realised that everything fought for by the working people of the last century was being stolen back – not just bit-by-bit but in incomprehensible billions.

With drought searing the Mid-West of the USA, and vast amounts of subsidised corn now being turned into ethanol to keep their sacred cars on their crumbling freeways, there is a real danger that their will be massive price rises on all sorts of foodstuffs. This will no doubt lead to even more unrest across the world, often in countries that are already on the verge of collapse as coherent social systems.

Of course everyone knows that the Governments in the twentieth century resolved these problems twice in a hundred years with mass slaughter, followed by disease and famine; and since then the USA has been in an almost perpetual state of war with at least some part of the world’s population.

Once Syria has been reduced to rubble run by the sort of people who are currently destroying the ancient shrines in Mali, the USA and its friends – the autocratic fundamentalist-financing billionaires of the oil kingdoms will turn their attention to Iran. And then Russia, with the aim of exploiting the vast mineral resources lying under the melting permafrost on the Siberian tundra.

Since our last posting during the civil unrest that rocked through the English cities in the hot months of 2011, the collapse of corporate capitalism is slowly being transformed into a ‘consensual’ police state.

The riots – as always – were used to justify a wide scale rounding -up of suspects and fellow travellers; the imposition of harsher and more punitive sentences which go unquestioned in the public domain for fear of being guilty of sympathetic thought; even greater degrees of surveillance imposed at personal and public levels [remember the Blackberry outage anyone ? - remember the servers are in Slough, UK;

August 20, 2011 — CSO — Executives at the main social media networks and messaging outlets - Facebook, Twitter and RIM's BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) - have been called to meet Home Office ministers on Thursday to discuss their products' usage in the UK riots].

Flat-bed lorries have been parked in shopping centres with blurred photos of ‘rioters’ blown-up to the size of posters, doors have been hammered down at six in the morning to arrest teenagers suspected of having stolen two left shoes, six month sentences handed out for looting a six-pack of mineral water and not even getting to drink it.

Meanwhile, the super yachts are built from the rare woods of ancient forests, cut down for the mining concessions that make the proud new captains so rich; the land ripped apart for the rare earths in the mobile phone that record your every movement through the alleyways and boulevards; and trace your friends and family into a spider’s web of data that traps us even as it attracts us.

The people of Greece are told that they face a generation or more of poverty , and it becomes the first urbanised country in modern times to see a flight to the countryside.

Across Europe social programmes which are funded by the taxes paid by many generations of workers are being closed down, and communally-owned buildings and land are being appropriated by the wealthy.

In Britain the Government discusses which state-owned assets might be sold-off to pay the debt. That is, of course, the debt owed to the banking class by the Government, or the governing class. It represents the money owed on all those junkets in first-class travel, meals at Claridges, armoured convoys travelling through the busy traffic with gun-toting goons guarding some hapless time-server who sits there thinking his time has really arrived; and the invisible web of control behind the facade that keeps it all ticking over.

And what they sell off will be the assets of the nation, earned by the sweat and blood of millions over centuries. And who will it be sold off to ? one might ask in some ironic way; for of course it will be to the very people who have decided that the debt should be paid.

Food for thought

And then the recent revelations that there are undercover police planted in every little group who might have the misguided belief that they are a free people with the right to express their opinions and dare to challenge the way that things are done. Cycling campaigns (Reclaim the streets] and environmental activists have been the main targets of these people who are paid to betray people that they get close to - how low can you actually go?

Not ‘terrorists’ or organised crime, both of which – we are led to believe – have flourished in the last twenty years; which is why your local bobby now looks like robocop on a hunting trip; why railway stations and West End plazas are every so often transformed into the fantasy landscapes of kids raised on Call of Duty with grim-faced, overpaid para-police in flak jackets toting automatics like they’d spray the square if a bar fight gets out of hand, or they spot some suspicious guy in a turban.

Meanwhile, on some estate two miles away, a war pensioner gets mugged on the corner by kids whose mum can’t get it together on the subsistence benefit because she can’t steal, duck and dive; or has just some scrap of dignity left, which means she won’t turn tricks to buy them chips.

***

This response to the riots was totally predictable – the British ruling class, although richer and more profligate than at any time in history, are also aware that the wolves are at the gates of Rome.

The vast and complex machinery of corruption based in the City of London, which has been robbing people of the fruits of their labour for over two hundred years is more visible, and detested than ever before. The tentacles of this octopus, which stretches from the towers of Manhattan and Canary Wharf have been flailing around looking for new sources of energy. Europe was abandoned years ago – its social welfare programmes and workers’ rights made it ‘unfriendly’ to profiteers. It has nothing to do with ‘building a business’ or enterprise, it is merely interested in exploitation; and the neediest people are the most easily exploited.

So the asset-strippers and beancounters moved in on businesses which had reached compacts with their workers; and literally moved the plant and capital across the globe to those areas that our Empire had already reduced to poverty. There they could pay the poor to work harder for much less in conditions the European workers would consider untenable. Of course, with true imperial arrogance, these financiers never thought they would see the day that the ‘natives’ would learn all the tricks of their ‘masters’ and play them just like they were once played.

The result is that we are now seeing the octopus in its dying agony, tearing itself apart from within.

The recent ‘downgrading’ of France by Standard and Poor is part of the USA’s attempt to ‘fix the game’; S&P is no more than a deniable agency controlled by the US Treasury – its part in the 2008 Crash is in no doubt. It was giving the banks in Iceland AAA+ status only days before they crashed in spectacular fashion; when it was revealed that their debts, running into hundreds of billions, far exceeded anything that could ever be backed up by the country itself, and its people.

But as long as the US can extend the ‘crisis in the Eurozone’, attention is deflected from the fact that the USA is well past bankrupt; its people already impoverished without even a proper healthcare or education system to help them back on their feet again.

And yet the US regime spend more than the rest of the world put together on armaments; more than half their Government spend each year on the machinery of death and destruction; that is their business now – WAR.

The only candidate in the forthcoming election who has even mentioned the distortion in the US economy, and how it is leading the country into a disaster it won’t be able to roll back on, is Ron Paul. He is virtually ignored by the media, despite his popularity; and probably knows he would never be alive long enough to start dismantling a rifle, let alone the US war machine, if he ever got near the White House.

Despite the economic [and moral] bankruptcy of the ruling classes in the UK and USA, we are yet again being led into a war. The sort of inter-communal solidarity so well exemplified in the marches against the Iraq War – which were so contemptuously ignored by the government of Tony Blair, a man who has both committed and profited from war crimes – will probably not be seen again this time around.

No-one believes that peaceful protest in this country has ANY effect anymore, and participation in any protest in the UK has long been treated as a reason for intrusive surveillance, police violence and criminalisation of the demonstrators. Just as in the USA, all protest is depicted as either ‘misguided’ or downright subversive.

The only alternative, in the forthcoming war, will be campaigns of civil disobedience.

The security state is already racheting up the tension in preparation for the Olympic Charade; winding up the fear factor with talk of ‘Mumbai massacres’ [another false flag operation] and bio-weapons, thus excusing the theft of £2bn from the public purse for Olympic Security.

And as Chomsky pointed out so succinctly, if the Nuremberg Laws were applied to the NATO axis – which now seems to [shamefully] include both France and East European countries [who should know better] – then our leaders would be on trial for their lives; but, hey! we’re living in the candy-coloured country , a New Jerusalem, the home of freedom and democracy.

Oh, and all that stuff about 14 million children living in poverty by 2012, just forget it . . . it’s just the hard surface behind the fuzzy screen.

We can’t say that we weren’t all warned – the cornered beast will take down everything else when it goes . . . .

And for a great analysis of the West’s secret war on the Syrian state, read this . . .

What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region.

The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report – “Which Path to Persia?” - continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.

A rereading of it, together with the more recent “Towards a Post-Assad Syria” (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the “Paths to Persia” report with the same key objective: regime change.

The authors of these reports include, among others, John Hannah and Martin Indyk, both former senior neo-conservative officials from the George W Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and both advocates for regime change in Syria. Not for the first time are we seeing a close alliance between US/British neo-cons with Islamists (including, reports show, some with links to al-Qaeda) working together to bring about regime change in an “enemy” state.

After the trashing of Iraq and the dismemberment of Libya, we can look forward to the destruction of Syria followed by an all-out war with Iran.

One suspects that the Russians are not standing idly by – they and their vast natural resources under the melting permafrost of Siberia are what the boys at World.com [USA] have their sights trained on – and once it starts moving, just watch Taiwan, home of 90% of the worlds hard-disk manafacture.

Today it had been revealed that not only was there no evidence – DNA, fingerprints or location – which linked the gun allegedly in Mark Duggan’s possession to him; but the cab in which he was traveling was moved from the crime scene by the police and only later ‘returned’ for the IPCC’s investigation.

Today Michael Mansfield QC, representing the Duggan family, told North London coroner’s court the gun was found “14 feet away behind a railing” as he accused the IPCC of issuing “misinformation” and obstructing the family’s own investigations by failing to disclose information. In a heated series of exchanges, Mr Sparrow said it had been a “mistake” to have initially suggested Mr Duggan had been killed in a “shoot-out”.

After continually refusing to answer questions that could prejudice the criminal inquiry, Mr Sparrow nodded his head as Mr Mansfield bluntly summed up: “No blood, no gun, no DNA relating to Mark Duggan?”

Mr Sparrow said claims were also being investigated that witnesses saw a police officer throwing the gun over a fence at the scene.

The court heard that the IPCC had failed to provide the family with an interim pathologist’s report on the trajectory of the bullet that killed him, and refused to let the family’s own pathologist meet the commission’s pathologists.

Mr Mansfield accused the IPCC of failing to secure the crime scene and of moving the minicab Mr Duggan was travelling in when he was shot in Ferry Lane. These claims have since been strongly denied by the IPCC.

Mr Sparrow said the investigation was not due to be completed until April next year.

Along with evidence taken across the country from participants in the riots by the Guardian and the LSE which concludes that there is a widespread disaffection with the police – particularly London’s force, the Met [Metropolitan Police] – it is clear that the riots were not a simple case of people popping out to do a bit of looting.

It is also clear that unless the police start being held to account in the UK, and governed by the rule of law – as they expect everyone else to be – the riots of 2011 will return.

And as our political class are realising, public dissatisfaction with both them and their paymasters in the City; as well as the resentment of an increasingly impoverished society supporting a tiny group of hedge-fund managers and public school careerists, is the sort of recipe that ends up with a guillotine set up in Trafalgar Square.

And between them, and the people are the ‘thin blue line’ who are even now being equipped with the sort of weaponry used against civil crowds in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A shoulder-mounted laser that emits a blinding wall of light capable of repelling rioters is to be trialled by police under preparations to prevent a repeat of this summer’s looting and arson.

The technology, developed by a former Royal Marine commando, temporarily impairs the vision of anyone who looks towards the source.

It has impressed a division of the Home Office which is testing a new range of devices because of the growing number of violent situations facing the police.

The developer, British-based Photonic Security Systems, hopes to offer the device to shipping companies to deter pirates. Similar devices have been used by ISAF troops in Afghanistan to protect convoys from insurgents.

The laser, resembling a rifle and known as an SMU 100, can dazzle and incapacitate targets up to 500m away with a wall of light up to three metres squared. It costs £25,000* and has an infrared scope to spot looters in poor visibility.

The Home Office has been considering new forms of non-lethal equipment since the August riots, with the limited range of tasers and CS gas leaving a “capability gap”.

A Home Office spokesman said scientists at its Centre for Applied Science and Technology believe the use of lasers “has merit” and that it will be piloted by at least one police force. However, they will have to be satisfied the technology does not cause long-term health damage before it can be approved by the Home Secretary.

Other technology being studied includes ‘wireless electronic interceptors’ that can be fired a greater distance than Tasers, and long-range chemical irritant projectiles, the newspaper said.

The Metropolitan Police is exploring the possibility of buying three water cannons at a cost of £4m. Currently the only police force in the UK to operate water cannon is the Police Force of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which has six. Scotland Yard is also increasing the number of officers trained to fire plastic bullets, as a direct response to the riots.

[*£25,000 would be the salary of a full-time youth worker or a librarian. That's where this Government's priorities really lie . . .]

So that’s alright then; the answer to a despised police force is to buy them more weaponry – with the peoples’ dwindling taxes – to ensure that the people can’t ever get close to those who are creating the most unequal society in the Western world.

As the smoke drifts away and the nation draws its breath, the questions about the English Revolts of 2011 are already being framed in the traditional way.

A definition of madness is performing the same action again and again and expecting a different outcome; this is why this cycle of revolt has come around again and again, in ever-decreasing circles, in ever-increasing violence and chaos.

When this society works, it is a melting pot; but when the pressure is turned up it becomes a black hole, and this is why it is important to identify the causes of this revolt; as every tree has a seed, and if this environment remains the same, this poison tree will grow stronger and will consume the earth it’s planted in, the earth we all live on . . .

This article is a news article. We will not be passing judgement on any party ; we are merely trying to assemble the relevant facts which might indicate why the cities of London descended into chaos over five days in August, 2011.

More than 300 officers swooped on the Pembury Boys gang – whose members are allegedly linked to a series of shootings, rapes, assaults and major drug dealing.

A total of 32 addresses were raided at dawn across east London in a hunt for 26 known gang members and their associates. By midday 23, including two women, had been arrested.

Searches recovered a large quantity of class A drugs, including crack cocaine and heroin, an imitation firearm and more than £8,000 in cash. Officers also recovered 40 mobile phones and more than 60 Sim cards.

Detectives likened the operation to the fictional TV series The Wire, set in the US city of Baltimore, because of its length, the fact it targeted the senior and middle-ranking echelons of the gang and its use of covert tactics.

Commander Peter Spindler, the head of covert operations at Scotland Yard, said police had thrown the “full might of covert policing” against the gang including the use of “human intelligence, technical surveillance and covert surveillance”. Sources said the arrests came after an 18-month operation, the longest covert inquiry conducted by the Met.

Most of the arrests took place on the Pembury estate in Hackney. The Pembury Boys are reputed to be one of London’s most violent street gangs.

Since last Wednesday, this ‘massive operation’ – to quote ‘the longest covert inquiry conducted by the Met’ and probably one of it’s largest mass raids ever, has not been mentioned in the press.

However, the Pembury Estate was central to the riots, and there the central focus was not looting, but a battle directly against the police. The reports on August 9th told of a battle lasting hours, in which the police repeatedly attempted to ‘take control’ of the estate, but were driven back again and again by the ‘insurgents’ on the street;

For three hours mayhem ruled in Hackney’s Pembury Estate, the centre of the violence in east London. The police were there, but there was no doubt who set the law in the estate, comprised of local authority mansion-blocks of flats.

Masked youths – both men and women – helped carry debris, bins, sticks and motorbikes, laying them across the roads to form a flaming boundary to the estate.

The crowd in Hackney – numbering at least 300 – appeared larger than any from previous nights of rioting.

Releasing the initial findings of ballistics tests, the police watchdog said a CO19 firearms officer fired two bullets, and that a bullet that lodged in a police radio was “consistent with being fired from a police gun”.

One theory, not confirmed by the IPCC, is that the bullet became lodged in the radio from a ricochet or after passing through Duggan.

Duggan, 29, was killed last Thursday in Tottenham, north London, after armed officers stopped the minicab in which he was travelling.but it had no evidence that the weapon had been fired. It said tests were continuing.

A father of three died instantly after an apparent exchange of fire when police attempted to arrest him in north London, it emerged on Friday.

A police marksman escaped with his life when a bullet lodged in his radio during the confrontation that ended in the death of Mark Duggan, 29.

To continue with the revised version, which is now slipping from most people’s memories;

Officers from the Met’s Operation Trident and Special Crime Directorate 11, accompanied by officers from CO19, the Met’s specialist firearms command, stopped the silver Toyota Estima minicab in Ferry Lane, close to Tottenham Hale tube station, to arrest Duggan. He was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest, and received a second gunshot wound to his right bicep. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 6.41pm.

The IPCC’s statement said the bullet lodged in the police radio was a “jacketed round”. This is a police-issue bullet and is “consistent with having been fired from a [police] Heckler and Koch MP5″, it said.

The non-police firearm found at the scene was a converted BBM Bruni self-loading pistol. The gun was found to have a “bulleted cartridge” in the magazine, which is being subjected to further forensic tests.The officer whose radio was hit was taken to Homerton hospital where he was examined and discharged later that night. The minicab driver was not injured but was badly shaken by what he saw, the IPCC said. His account, as well as those of the officers, is being examined along with the forensic evidence.

So in one week, in one small area of London, the police carried out mass arrests and then shot a well-known local man dead who had not – it now appears – drawn a gun on them.

And they were ‘taken aback’ by the violence ?

Broadwater Farm - 1985 -Tottenham Riots

The biggest ‘surprise’ about the riots, which spread like wildfire out from the Pembury Estate to the rest of London, and then across the country was that after those two events recorded above, that the police seemed ‘totally unprepared’ for what followed. From The Guardian August 5th . . .

After a peaceful vigil outside the local police station, where the family waited for five hours without any senior officer being sent to see them despite being promised that this would happen – dusk fell, and the street started to fill up with youths.

What happened over the next four hours is subject to debate, but what is clear is that tensions gradually escalated, as police made only limited attempts to talk to the demonstrators. Some who were present described seeing a younger, more aggressive crowd arrive around dusk, some carrying weapons. “These people were prepared,” said Bill Dow, a bystander. “They had fireworks and petrol cans.”

Protest organisers denied this, and said police failed to engage with them. Eventually a chief inspector came out and spoke to Duggan’s relatives but, organisers said, he conceded a higher-ranking officer should talk to them. Stafford Scott, a community organiser, said police were “absolutely” culpable for not responding to their requests for dialogue.

“I told the chief inspector personally that we wanted to leave before nightfall,” Scott said. “If he kept us hanging around after nightfall, it was going to be on his head. We couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t get out of control.”

Scott said the chief inspector promised a higher ranking official would speak to the crowd. When no one came, organisers said some younger men turned their anger to two police cars, which were set on fire.

There were two notable comments by Cameron in the Houses of Parliament today.

One was that this was ‘gang directed’ violence – a subject that has not been touched upon previously.

The second was concerning the cuts to the police budget, along with changes to the pay structures and conditions of work – which numerous reviews have pointed out are excessively ‘easy’ in a ‘time of austerity’.

There are numerous questions arising out of this situation, and as in the Strategy of Tension in Italy in the 1970′s, the media, politicians and police are in a race to suggest more and more draconian solutions and exploit the climate of fear that reigned across the cities and suburbs of Britain for four days in August.

But questions such as these will have to be addressed;

Was this a predictable riot allowed to get out of hand, which then spread faster than anyone could predict, and has coincidentally happened just before swingeing cuts are enacted on the police – notably the Met, who have already suffered the humiliating resignations of two senior officers [the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner] under clouds of corruption – followed today by the resignation of their press officer.

Will any serious questions now be asked about Britain’s drug laws, which are merely an extension of the USA’s Prohibition – which as we all know, made the gangsters the richest men in 1920′s America, and corrupted the whole Establishment. Of course, Prohibition [of alcohol] was abandoned – and promptly replaced by the Drug Laws to keep the Fed’s in ‘gainful employment’ – as well as many other tangential advantages for any totalitarian state.

Since New Labour came in 1997, they introduced new Stop and Search laws – with an estimated 600,000 ‘stops’ PER YEAR stopped since 2001 (as part of the “War on Terror”). That’s around 6 million stops – concentrated in fairly limited urban areas – not ONE of which, as Tory MP David Davis pointed out today, has resulted in ONE arrest for terrorism. And according to Human Rights groups – surprise, surprise – the overwhelming majority are;

1st. Black and 2nd, Asian. This is something that rarely inflicts on white communities in the suburbs, but is a constant source of anger and humiliation amongst all the youth in poor inner city communities -who already feel marginalised.

How will this all be used as an excuse for further extensions of State power and surveillance ? Sadly, by the time that most people realise they were terrorised and tricked into aquiescing to a total, intrusive police state it’s too late to turn the clock back without the sort of Revolutions last seen in Eastern Europe . . .

This article is not a commentary on the social or ethical causes of this riot, but merely attempting – in some way like a forensic team at a crime scene – to rewind back before the traumatic wave of chaos and find some pattern in the madness.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿The citizens of Greece are the first people in Europe this century to come together in solidarity and face down their own Government. They believe their political class have surrendered the rights of a democratic people to the bondholders, banks and hedge funds who are demanding the impoverishment of their nation to pay for the ever-ballooning profits of the global financial sector.

The people of Europe are about to be hit by the second heist in two years – where their long-fought for welfare systems and egalitarian societies are reduced to feudal penury by the machinations of bankers, financial hucksters and politicians.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿”First, it takes two sides to create a bond crisis. For every reckless borrower there is a reckless lender. The Greek government might have lied about its budget deficit and been needlessly extravagant during the boom years. But nobody was forced to lend the Greek government any money. Investors should have asked themselves where the money was going, and how sustainable Greek economic growth would be. They didn’t. Instead they just saw that yields were higher than on German or French debt, and jumped onto what looked like a gravy train.”

The drama is being played out in the streets and town squares of Greece; the Parliament is virtually under siege, and the crowds who represent the whole spectrum of Greek society and political belief, are united in their ambition to depose the ruling class and disrupt the well-laid plans of the financial oligarchy to ‘privatise’ Europe.

Braving the tear gas

The protests have been met by a police force amply equipped with tear gas, batons and equipment - and we’re sure that NATO will not allow them to run out . . .

However, inspired in part by the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts, in which massive and diverse crowds took over their own locale ; the Greeks and the Spanish are now occupying town squares and plazas across their respective countries.

The logistics of this popular strategy can be found here on the Occupied London site.

Greek demonstrator returns his loan with interest

It will be interesting to see how the refusal of the population to play the bankers’ game will play out across Europe. It’s rumoured that the latest wave of Greek protests started after the Spanish demonstrations in their provincial town squares against similar ‘austerity measures’ featured banners asking ‘Where are the Greeks ?’

It is becoming clear that the Greek Government – nominally a social democrat administration – which is tasked by the IMF with introducing ‘austerity measures’ to pay for the bad management and profligacy of the banks, will have to enforce them against the will of the people.

Pensions have been halved, welfare slashed and State assets are being lined up for a firesale to the financial elite that has already profitted from the impoverishment of Europe’s economy through ‘outsourcing’ and ‘globalisation.’

Now the bankers, economists and politicians have been popping up on every media outlet decrying the fact that a modern democratic people have looked at the choices they are being offered by the ruling oligarchy and decided that they will be quite happy to see their country default on the ‘loans’ from the ‘bondholders’.